by Kathryn Sollman, author of “The 4 Jobs Club: How Smart Women Care for It All — Kids, Aging Parents, Home & Career“
When you imagine how much women earn at the top of the corporate ladder, you probably think, “Well, of course they can afford to hire people to help them care for their homes.”
And they do. A Fortune study found that two-thirds of US working women who have at least one direct report outsource various household tasks, including housecleaning, pet sitting, grocery delivery, and landscaping.
The very important reality, though, is that many C-suite women always outsourced household tasks — even when their titles were much more junior. This is also reflected in the study: two-thirds of women at the manager level outsource for some type of hired help — from childcare to cleaning services to personal trainers to grocery delivery services.
Invest in your career, even when you have limited funds.
Kris Malkoski and her husband have always been a two-career couple — with big careers at that. Her husband was a CEO twice and traveled nonstop.
Add in the fact that Kris had three children in less than two years — all under age five when she was a Director of Marketing launching a major healthcare brand. At the time, her husband was commuting to Asia — three weeks away, then two weeks back.
So how did Kris keep all the balls in the air? She paid for a lot of help. In a mid-level position, though, she did not have a big executive salary. She ignored the prevailing wisdom that it’s not “worth it” to work if childcare is eating up most of your salary or you’re just breaking even. Instead, Kris saw her high cost of outsourcing as an investment that allowed growth in her career. And she knew her kids would not always need the same amount of care.
Marie Myers had the same approach — investing 30 to 40 percent of her paycheck in her early career years to pay for live-in nannies, who became the family’s house manager. “Invest in the foundation that will help you reach your peak earning years — when you’re in your 50s and 60s.”
Kris also had a live-in nanny — and because that nanny was caring for three very young children, she also hired another woman to come in for three hours a day to do laundry and cook dinner.
Later, Kris tapped into the teaching assistants who were always looking for extra ways to make money. She would enlist these young women to drive her children home from school and supervise homework.
“I always had a big outlay for the resources I hired, but it saved my sanity, gave our household structure and routine, kept our kids safe and happy, and gave me the room to keep growing in my career. If I hadn’t invested the money then, I might not be where I am today.”
Allocate and reallocate the money that saves your sanity.
Jonita Wilson learned very early on to put everything in perspective when it comes to running a household. She decided she didn’t need to immediately take care of the dishes in the sink or the clothes in the laundry basket. As long as the house was decent-ish and everyone was healthy, she felt life was okay.
But then one day when things really were in disarray, Jonita exploded, and she and her husband decided it was time to get help. They’ve had a woman help with cleaning every other week since then. Initially they couldn’t really afford the extra expense, but she says it was a wise investment that saved her sanity, her marriage, and, she says jokingly, the lives of her children.
“Even if outsourcing takes a big chunk out of your after-tax income, earmark that chunk early on, and keep reallocating it. When we no longer needed childcare, we put the same chunk of money into more household help. We have different needs and priorities at various times, but some form of help always has big paybacks in sound mental health.”
Sharon Ryan agrees women should hire as much childcare and household help they can reasonably afford. “Your weekends should not be about cleaning the house. And for sanity and personal growth, a spouse or partner who stays home should have time to pursue interests and activities not house or family related.”
The time women don’t spend on housecleaning can be spent with their children, their partners — and in the community. In Sharon’s case, she invested the time she saved on domestic tasks into volunteering at organizations benefiting women and children.
The consensus is that from the start of your career you need time for two critical things: caring for your family and building your portfolio of expertise. In any given week it makes sense to allocate your time carefully and preserve your sanity through even limited outsourcing.
*Excerpted from The 4 Jobs Club by Kathryn Sollman. ©2024 John Murray Business. Reprinted with permission. This article may not be reproduced for any other use without permission.
Kathryn Sollman, Speaker, Coach and Author, has made it her mission to keep women working toward financial security in a flexible way — alongside child and aging parent caregiving roles. Kathryn’s forthcoming book, “The 4 Jobs Club: How Smart Women Care for It All — Kids, Aging Parents, Home & Career“, features 200+ simple tips and strategies from 50 C-Suite Women on how they have found ways to blend work and life — and take care of themselves, too.
